Hey folks, in case you missed it, a little while back we wrote about one of our core values – Games Before Profit.
This time round, we’re taking a moment to look at our next value on the list – Fostering Honesty. This is largely about how we communicate internally, how we respect each other’s ideas and opinions, and how we encourage each other to listen!
The founder’s face might well be our logo but believe it or not – we’re not actually a dictatorship: At Lo-Fi we are a team, and we respect the fact that we’re all actual human beings that work within a company, have a right to be listened to and that we indeed benefit from doing just so.
Listening to the opinions of the team we’ve employed for expertise in their respective fields is essential to ensuring we make the best games we possibly can. “We rely on them so that we can do better”, says Managing Director and Lead Writer Nat Mikkelson, “We all have different and diverse angles to add, and that’s powerful. What we don’t want is to be following a satnav off a cliff because nobody was brave enough to ask ‘why are we driving off a cliff?’ like a bunch of lemmings”
If we worked in an environment where we were scared to speak up, or simply believed that all ideas needed to come from the top down then we’d risk losing out on some of the better and frankly wackier ideas that make Kenshi what it is.
Listening might sound like a pretty basic life skill but it’s easy to forget that we’re all from different backgrounds and experience life in entirely different ways depending on ever-changing circumstances. A recent workshop we did reminded us that if you’re too hot, too stressed, or too hungry, then your concentration’s probably not at its best. When you truly listen to someone without interjections, and while trying to maintain an unbiased viewpoint, then you’re going to earn the trust of your listener and pick up on what they’re saying on a much deeper level.
If you’ve already decided what your opinion is on a matter before you ask someone a question then you may as well not have asked it at all. Better listening requires entering the conversation genuinely interested in the opinions of the person you’re speaking to.
It’s important to ensure that we give specific, actionable feedback with clear steps rather than simply writing off people’s work with a negative and vague comment that leaves your colleague with nowhere to go. If you’re interested in learning more on feedback then it’s worth having a read up on the clean feedback model.
Obviously, it’s not always easy or natural to give “negative” or constructive feedback; it’s something that we might avoid for a whole multitude of reasons, so we’ve been sharing tips on exactly how to do this, such as those found in this video on having uncomfortable conversations. One key takeaway – don’t keep putting off those difficult conversations, you’ll only make the matter worse.
We’ve recently been sharing a lot of links internally on topics that we believe will help us nurture a culture of honesty, and we’ve made sure to vary the methods of delivery because we know people have different learning styles.
Amongst the things we’ve shared is this snippet on the What? So What? Now What? model which helps with reflecting on situations, along with this video explanation on the same topic. We recommend the excellent book Say What You Mean by Jay Sofer and this TedX talk from Frederik Imbo on How not to take things personally. We’ll share a few more links at the bottom of the page in a resources section in case you’re interested.
We’re a big fan of regular 1:1s at Lo-Fi, believing it’s vital to have those more casual chats on a regular basis which tend to give space to people sharing things that they’d otherwise struggle to bring up in a more formal setting. The philosophy behind this is discussed a little in this video from Simon Sinek on how to make people feel heard. We like them, and they help a lot with keeping a team that’s largely remote feel connected.
The long and short of it is that we like to think of ourselves as honest people that sell an honest product and act accordingly. While we try to be as honest as possible internally with our comms we also endeavour to extend that to our fans – Kenshi is a game that you simply buy once and you’re done, and we think that’s a fairly honest proposition.
Links:
Become a Better Listener I Robert Greene
Try THIS the Next Time You Have an Uncomfortable Conversation | Simon Sinek
How not to take things personally? | Frederik Imbo | TEDxMechelen
